A comprehensive approach to the study of advertising execution and its effects

Abstract Recent criticism of advertising research has highlighted its lack of practical relevance and the absence of replication studies. Both are significant shortcomings for applied science intended to improve advertising practice. This paper proposes a methodological four-stage approach to the study of advertising execution to address these deficiencies. First, scholars should identify a relevant advertising phenomenon in the real world by studying advertising practice using methods such as interviewing experts, reviewing trade magazines, or attending practitioners’ conferences. Second, scholars must demonstrate the effects of the phenomenon in a laboratory experiment using internally valid stimuli, realistic stimuli exposures, adequate samples, and statistics focusing on effect sizes rather than p-values. Third, further studies have to confirm and explicate the effects using mediating or moderating variables. Finally, the effects of the advertising phenomenon should be replicated in field research. Widespread adoption of the four-stage approach would ensure the practical relevance of advertising research, and increase its validity and reliability.